Encouraging competitive play

Da Bounca

Great article aimed at the relative newcomers or 'casualcore' players in any fighting game scene.

The reasons why you should attend tourneys and such from the experiences of a long time fighting game enthusiast.

Linkage

Doctor DooM

It's a good read and everything it says is true (I've gotten that feeling when I've beaten someone better than me for the first time at a tournament, and I've seen it on others faces when they've bodied me) but I think it neglects one major thing that I hear from my casual FG friends: fear.

They just don't want to go because they're afraid they'll get immediately and embarrassingly destroyed. That happens to everyone at some point but they don't understand a tournament day is more than just your own personal progression through the tournament and it's hard to convey that.

ayjayirl

Neuro-chemical high eh? Now I know why Cog gets soo salty.

Good read. hypes you up for the next tourney. When is inferno?

chopperbyrne

4th of February.

I'll get a thread up later when I have some time.

We have to be out for bang on six. They've already pushed something back an hour for us.

Orim

chopperbyrne wrote: »

4th of April.

I'll get a thread up later when I have some time.

We have to be out for bang on six. They've already pushed something back an hour for us.

I'm all for a breaks between tournaments but waiting till April seems a bit much. Maybe February would be better?

chopperbyrne

February.

Doctor DooM

New thread lads.

Orim

Sorry Doom, just extracting the urine.

I havn't had a chance to read the article yet but I'd echo Dooms comments about fear. But I don't think there's just the gameplay fear. You can see a social fear as well with some people. Fear might be too strong a word but you can see it with some where they are worried about being older/younger then average, not as serious or just in some way wouldn't fit in at a tournament.

From the other side you have the social stigmata of telling your "real-life" friends that you are going to a Street Fighter tournament.

wtfbenson

Yeah, I think fear is a big part of it but it's an odd kind of fear. At least for me, going to my first tourney was basically accepting the fact that I'm going to get straight destroyed and making myself okay with that fact because it would force me to level up really quickly. It's fear in the sense that you've been slowly climbing a hill and then you realize the next step is a massive vertical leap. It's looking back on how far you've come and then realizing the next step is exponentially harder than all the previous ones combined. That's where the fear lies from my standpoint; it's understandable to see why more don't compete when they can just as easily do nothing and remain comfortable in being the best amongst their social circle.

I'm not sure I've ever felt the social stigma side of it though. Maybe it's because most of my friends as well as co-workers are quite nerdy but I think that's only part of it. Most people in general are just boring or lazy so I don't really feel bad about saying "I went to a sf tourney this weekend" or "I spent most of Saturday practicing my bnbs in mvc" (not in that language, of course) because generally their answer is "I went drinking" or something equally fulfilling. Maybe if I hung out with a bunch of doctors who spend their free time volunteering at a free clinic I would feel bad about it, but in my experience having a passion and pursuing it, no matter what it is, makes you more interesting than the people who spend their free time browsing netflix or watching a football/rugby match.